Archive for March 2010

The brilliant and whimsical Kim has submitted a music video for the Moby song Wait for Me. Not quite sure how to embed it on this post as, embarrassingly enough, I’m actually quite the blogging Luddite (if I’m permitted an oxymoron). But you can read Kim’s description below as an appetiser.

This is the story of a homeless pencil – who desires a diamond – and its journey through a “day” which is symbolic of its troubles. The pencil hopes the diamond will be patient and still be there after it cleans up its act. What sex or race is the pencil? Well I wanted it to be non-specific although it did end up leaning in a certain direction… you can decide for yourself. I’ve recently engaged with a couple of homeless people and that was partly an inspiration for this video – they seem to exist in a different time frame while the world goes by relentlessly. The song’s music and lyrics conjured up the story you see. It’s a dark tune but has moments of hope in it. I feel that we are somewhat – I say only somewhat – desensitised to images of people in the media, and in real life, who are in trouble, suffering or lost in some way. I wanted to explore a way that would encourage people to think and react to such people perhaps from a new perspective. Graphite and diamond are both made of the same thing – carbon – so at the end of the day the pencil is an equal to the diamond.

If your interest is piqued, click here to check out the video. I mean, you don’t *have* to vote for Kim; I’m pretty certain Moby’s gonna pick her video. But I voted for her, just in case he has a stupid day.

If you are inspired to vote, it’s not difficult; once you’ve clicked on Kim’s video on the Genero.tv website you don’t need to sign up or anything, just enter your email address. And if you’d like to spread the word, you can invite your friends to check out her video via the Facebook event page. Or follow Kim on Twitter on @homelesspencil.

Here’s what a couple of people who’ve already voted for her had to say:

“Really liked the vid and was thus able to vote with clear conscience. G’luck”

Mim: I really like how ABJ has opened up this space.
T: Ja, me too.
Mim: We’re going to put an occasional table over there.
T: Is the table going to be there all the time?
Mim: What do you mean?
Pim: Will it be there only on occasion?
Mim: You two have been spending far too much time together!

Last week, shocking revelations concerning the activities of the ANC Youth League spokesperson, Nyiko Floyd Shivambu, came to the fore. According to a letter published in various news outlets, a complaint was laid by 19 political journalists with the Secretary General of the ANC, against Shivambu. This complaint letter detailed attempts by Shivambu to leak a dossier to certain journalists, purporting to expose the money laundering practices of Dumisani Lubisi, a journalist at the City Press. The letter also detailed the intimidation that followed when these journalists refused to publish these revelations.

We condemn in the strongest possible terms the reprisals against journalists by Shivambu. His actions constitute a blatant attack on media freedom and a grave infringement on Constitutional rights. It is a disturbing step towards dictatorial rule in South Africa. We call on the ANC and the ANC Youth League to distance themselves from the actions of Shivambu. The media have, time and again, been a vital democratic safeguard by exposing the actions of individuals who have abused their positions of power for personal and political gain.

The press have played a vital role in the liberation struggle, operating under difficult and often dangerous conditions to document some of the most crucial moments in the struggle against apartheid. It is therefore distressing to note that certain people within the ruling party are willing to maliciously target journalists by invading their privacy and threatening their colleagues in a bid to silence them in their legitimate work.

We also note the breathtaking hubris displayed by Shivambu and the ANC Youth League President, Julius Malema, in their response to the letter of complaint. Shivambu and Malema clearly have no respect for the media and the rights afforded to the media by the Constitution of South Africa. Such a response serves only to reinforce the position that the motive for leaking the so-called dossier was not a legitimate concern, but an insolent effort to intimidate and bully a journalist who had exposed embarrassing information about the Youth League President.

We urge the ANC as a whole to reaffirm its commitment to media freedom and other Constitutional rights we enjoy as a country.

T: I don’t understand why the government is getting so excited about Cofit, when it hasn’t sorted out Refit properly yet.
Mim: What’s Cofit?
T: The cogeneration feed-in tariff.
Mim: Oh.
T: Also, why do they have to have all these silly acronyms? Like, why can’t all the tariffs just be called one thing?
Mim: They just want to make people feel excluded.
T: Ja, like the poor solar power people. They need get their own tariff; it could be called Sofit.
Mim: What they really need is a Sowhat tariff!